A New Creation

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They say that change is constant. 

A caterpillar being transformed into a butterfly is the epitome of change. It’s good to keep in mind, though, that this change doesn’t come easily and it doesn’t happen overnight. The caterpillar eats voraciously, and nearly continuously, to grow strong. After she builds her chrysalis and is transformed into a butterfly inside it, she has to work to emerge from it. Her struggle to break through the hard shell is necessary for her to develop strong, healthy wings. Some people have tried to ‘help’ butterflies emerge, but this actually harms them: The caterpillar’s and butterfly’s respective work is what lets her reach her ultimate goal. In all stages of the butterfly’s development, there’s no stagnation. There’s constant work and constant change. 

The same is true for us in our spiritual life. We’ll become stronger in our faith when we resist stagnation – when we work at our spiritual growth and ask God to work with us. We’ll grow stronger in our faith by learning, through prayer and experience, how God wants us to express that faith. We’ll discover how we can show our love for God and for our neighbor with our personalities and talents and all the other resources He’s given us. What God asks of us may very well change with the seasons of our life. As we mature and as our faith grows stronger, we’ll learn to follow God’s promptings and change as He guides us to. And over time, we’ll be transformed – we’ll live with and for Christ more and more. We’ll become kinder, wiser, more patient, more generous, more compassionate, more charitable, more forgiving, more loving, and more prayerful. We’ll become more and more focused on God and less on ourselves. We’ll become more like Him.

To let our Lord accomplish all of this in us, we have to be open to change; we have to allow ourselves to be changed by the One Who created us. To become more like God, we have to become a new creation – we have to become the people He created us to be.

This doesn’t happen overnight, and it doesn’t happen without effort on our part. So, let’s ask our Lord for the grace to open our hearts to Him, and to help us see how He wants us to change. Let’s ask Him to help us identify and abandon our old, stagnant ways. Let’s ask Him to draw us closer to Himself and to help us take advantage of opportunities to spend more time with Him during our day. Let’s ask Him to show us how we might find new ways to show His love to the people in our family and in our community. 

Let’s ask God for the courage to let Him transform us into the people He created us to be.

“So whoever is in Christ is a new creation...” – 2 Corinthians 5:17

Let everything I do be with You, for You, and because of You.

Thank you for reading my reflection.  All thanks to God for giving me the ideas and guiding my words!    © 2025 Gina Bedell   

  

Through these reflections, I invite you, the reader, to reflect on a given topic and then seek deeper answers through prayer, additional spiritual reading, and/or consultation with clergy or other qualified persons in order to grow in your faith and understanding of God’s love and will for your life. 

Please share this with your friends by clicking on one of the icons below.  Comments are always welcome! 

If you or someone you know would like to receive these writings directly, please email me at ginabedell1@gmail.com and I will add you to my ‘BCC’ email list. 

You can also find my posts on my Facebook page!

P.S.

Pray for peace at home and around the world. Donate to a cause that tugs at your heart. Take care of those around you; take care of our planet. Pray for the people around the globe whose lives have been torn apart by war and natural disasters.

Believe in the One He Sent

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Watching all you people with green thumbs this time of year is like watching little kids in early December. The excitement is palpable. You finally get to dig in your dirt. Finally, you get to plant your salads and your flowers. And, like the kids who write their letters to Santa and wait in hopeful anticipation, so do you do your planting and watch for the first sprouts to poke up through the earth.

If you didn’t believe that your garden would grow, you wouldn’t do the work of planting seeds. If little Johnny didn’t believe that presents would be under the tree on Christmas morning, he wouldn’t bother making a list.

What about our faith? Do we believe that Christ, risen from the dead, is alive within us? Do we do the work of asking our Lord to strengthen our faith? 

Our brains may not be able to grasp the power of the risen Christ, and our minds may not be able to fully comprehend that the Eucharist really is the Body and Blood of Christ, but when we profess our belief in these truths and open our hearts to Him, we invite our Lord to bless us with even deeper faith – faith that has the power to transform us.

Deeper faith gives us the strength to imitate Christ even more closely and become more like Him. It also gives us the courage to take steps toward Him with humility, kind of like how you plant seeds: We trust that He’ll bless us and our efforts and bring to fruition the works of our hands. 

With stronger faith we open our hearts to Christ’s loving grace and come to understand His Way better. As Augustine of Hippo said, “For understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore, do not seek to understand in order to believe, but believe so that you may understand.”

And what rewards we receive when we believe! We receive insight where there had been ignorance. We experience peace of mind and heart when we accept that “God makes all things work together for good for those who love him” (Romans 8:28). We learn the redemptive value of suffering. We are strong with Him where we had been weak by ourselves. And so much more.

As you plant the seeds in your garden this spring – or watch your neighbors do so – ask our Lord to plant the seeds of faith deeper into your heart. Ask Him for faith that fills you with grace, courage, strength, humility, and understanding. Let your belief in Him enlighten you; transform you; and empower you to do His will.

“This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.”  –John 6:29

Open my eyes, that I may see You. Open my ears, that I may hear You. Open my heart, that I may love You in the people around me.

Thank you for reading my reflection.  All thanks to God for giving me the ideas and guiding my words!    © 2025 Gina Bedell   

  

Through these reflections, I invite you, the reader, to reflect on a given topic and then seek deeper answers through prayer, additional spiritual reading, and/or consultation with clergy or other qualified persons in order to grow in your faith and understanding of God’s love and will for your life. 

Please share this with your friends by clicking on one of the icons below.  Comments are always welcome! 

If you or someone you know would like to receive these writings directly, please email me at ginabedell1@gmail.com and I will add you to my ‘BCC’ email list. 

You can also find my posts on my Facebook page!

P.S.

Pray for peace at home and around the world. Donate to a cause that tugs at your heart. Take care of those around you; take care of our planet. Pray for the people around the globe whose lives have been torn apart by war and natural disasters.

Nothing Is Impossible for God

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God uses the humble to make the impossible happen. Consider the Annunciation, which is celebrated on March 25. An unmarried girl was asked to become the Mother of God. Despite her questions and the impossibility of it all, she answered humbly, “Let it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38) – and the history of the world changed.

In ancient Israel, a little girl was captured during a raid and became a slave of the army commander’s wife. Naaman, the army commander, had leprosy. The girl knew of a powerful prophet and told Naaman’s wife, “If only my master would present himself to the prophet in Samaria, he would cure him of his leprosy.” Naaman went to see the prophet Elisha, who told Naaman simply to wash in the Jordan river. He did so, and was cured (see 2 Kings 5:1-14).

As God used young Mary to be an instrument in Jesus’ miraculous Incarnation, He also used the slave girl to be an instrument in Naaman’s miraculous healing. Though she had no social status, God inspired the girl to speak up when she realized someone could benefit from what she knew. Had she not followed her inclination to say something, Naaman wouldn’t have been cured. 

God also prompted Naaman’s servants to urge him to follow Elisha’s command. When Elisha told Naaman, through a messenger, to go wash in the river, Naaman refused. He had expected Elisha to come out to greet him and perform some kind of dramatic ritual over him; washing in the Jordan was so simple it seemed foolish. The servants pointed out that, if Elisha had ordered him to do something extraordinary, he would have done it right away. He agreed; so he went, washed, and was healed. Had these lowly servants remained silent, Naaman wouldn’t have been cured.

Lent is half over. Let’s redouble our efforts with humility to listen to the promptings of the Spirit to step out in faith or to speak up when we see someone in need. Let’s humbly listen for His guidance when others reach out to us. If we hesitate because we think we’re unqualified or we’re afraid of being criticized, then we may be thinking only of ourselves. Instead, let’s not underestimate the goodness and the loving power of God; let’s consider that He may want to accomplish something through us, impossible as that may seem. Let’s trust that, if He has put an idea in our heart, He’ll guide us to each next step to make it happen. 

Let’s believe that what He wants to accomplish through us will not be impossible if we trust Him.

“for nothing will be impossible for God.” – Luke 1:27

Open my eyes, that I may see You. Open my ears, that I may hear You. Open my heart, that I may love You in the people around me.

SIDE NOTE: The women’s a cappella quintet I sing with, Grace Notes, has been invited to join the terrific men’s vocal ensemble Sonnenberg Station in a FREE CONCERT that is open to the public on Sunday, April 6, at 7:00 p.m. at Faith Lutheran Church, 2726 West Market St. in Fairlawn, across from Marc’s. Both groups will perform our own pieces and we will also sing a few together. This will be a fantastic concert! Hope to see you there – invite your friends!

Thank you for reading my reflection.  All thanks to God for giving me the ideas and guiding my words!    © 2025 Gina Bedell   

  

Through these reflections, I invite you, the reader, to reflect on a given topic and then seek deeper answers through prayer, additional spiritual reading, and/or consultation with clergy or other qualified persons in order to grow in your faith and understanding of God’s love and will for your life. 

Please share this with your friends by clicking on one of the icons below.  Comments are always welcome! 

If you or someone you know would like to receive these writings directly, please email me at ginabedell1@gmail.com and I will add you to my ‘BCC’ email list. 

You can also find my posts on my Facebook page!

P.S.

Pray for peace at home and around the world. Donate to a cause that tugs at your heart. Take care of those around you; take care of our planet. Pray for the people around the globe whose lives have been torn apart by war and natural disasters.

God Does Great Things With Your Tiny Seeds

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It was a science experiment for 5-year-olds: All the children in a kindergarten class dropped flower seeds into sidewalk cracks around their school to see what would happen. For weeks, they saw nothing. Then, to their delight, flowers sprouted and bloomed in those unlikely habitats! The children didn’t need to understand all the science behind how flowers grow before starting their experiment. They only needed the desire to scatter the seeds. God did the rest. 

Just as God took the children’s efforts and made flowers grow in improbable places, so does He take our good works, both significant and humble, and use them for His purposes. 

With His infinite power, God could heal all diseases, wipe out hunger, provide shelter for the homeless, and make the lonely and lowly feel loved without any input from us. Instead of doing all this on His own, though, He lets us have some ownership in it: He accepts what we humbly and lovingly offer for others. Then He multiplies the benefits and uses it to build His Kingdom. 

We may doubt that we have the necessary skills to make a difference. We may not understand why the need is so great. We may question why God allows so many people to suffer. Yet in the midst of all those unanswerable questions, if we’re willing to work with Him, He’ll take our efforts and use them in ways we could never do on our own.

Listen to what our Lord may be saying to you today:

“What I ask you to do, you may not understand. Trust Me.

You may think you’re incapable of doing big things. Trust Me.

You may think your contributions are insignificant. Trust Me.

I will meet you in the eyes of the poor, the outcast, the forgotten. Offer your hand to them and you’ll grasp Mine. Trust Me.

I will take what you do and turn it into something eternally valuable – even if you don’t see it. Ask Me.

I will strengthen you to go out of your comfort zone. Ask Me.

I will give you courage when you need it. Ask Me.

Like a gardener who plants flower seeds and trusts Me to make them bloom, trust Me to take your seeds of faith and loving works, no matter how small, and use them for My Kingdom.”

Pay attention when God tugs at your heart to reach out to someone in need. You don’t have to have all the answers, just a desire to let Him use what you offer.

“This is how it is with the Kingdom of God: it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how.” – Mark 4:26-27

Open my eyes, that I may see You. Open my ears, that I may hear You. Open my heart, that I may love You in the people around me.

Thank you for reading my reflection!  All thanks to God for giving me the ideas and guiding my words.    © 2025 Gina Bedell   

  

Through these reflections, I invite you, the reader, to reflect on a given topic and then seek deeper answers through prayer, additional spiritual reading, and/or consultation with clergy or other qualified persons in order to grow in your faith and understanding of God’s love and will for your life. 

Comments are always welcome! Please share this with your friends by clicking on one of the icons below. 

If you or someone you know would like to receive these writings directly, please email me at ginabedell1@gmail.com and I will add you to my ‘BCC’ email list. 

You can also find my posts on my Facebook page!

P.S.

Pray for peace at home, in Ukraine, Russia, the Middle East, and around the world. Donate to a cause that tugs at your heart. Take care of those around you; take care of our planet. Pray for the families around the globe whose lives have been torn apart by war and natural disasters.

Let Christ Get Into Your Boat

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In Mark’s gospel, the apostles are rowing their boat with the winds blowing against them. They’re straining at the oars – anyone who has rowed or paddled against the wind can relate to this! Then, they see Christ walking on the water and they’re terrified. As He walks toward them, He tells them He’s with them so there’s nothing to be afraid of. He gets into their boat and the wind stops. Why didn’t Christ stop the wind first? He wanted them to learn that He’d be with them during any trial, and that no obstacle could stop Him. 

He wants us to learn from this, too. Just as He saw the apostles’ fight against the wind, Christ sees our struggles, too. He makes Himself available to us to calm our fears. Do we let Him get into our boat? And how do we do this? 

We recognize, first, that fear babbles at us and tries to keep our minds fixed on everything that can go wrong or everything we’ve done wrong. In contrast, faith lets us keep our focus on Christ’s love for us. Faith gives us the courage to believe and trust that He’s with us, and will stay with us, and that He’ll calm the storms around and within us. Later in the passage, Mark points out that they crossed the lake and landed at Gennesaret. So we know that, after Christ got into their boat, the apostles continued to row until they reached the shore. So faith lets us say, “OK, God, everything’s in Your hands. I’m going to keep rowing; I ask You to guide me in the direction You want me to go.” Our job is to listen and then act when we sense Him steering us in a particular direction.

It’s this turning to Christ, this asking Him to guide us, that frees us from our fears of the fierce winds we’re battling. We recognize that maybe the only thing in our control is how we ‘row our boat’ while the winds blow. We can row frantically on our own and let ourselves be filled with anxiety, or we can row steadily, trusting Christ to be with us and lead us, not allowing fear to overwhelm us. 

We can’t ignore our struggles, just as the apostles couldn’t ignore the wind. Like the apostles, we let Christ into our ‘boat’ – whatever situation we find ourselves in – and continue to row with Him by our side. We ask Him to calm the storm that’s raging in and around us. We listen for His direction and act accordingly. And in doing all of this, we open our hearts to His peace. 

“‘Then He saw that they were tossed about while rowing… and said to them, ‘Take courage, it is I, do not be afraid!’ He got into the boat with them and the wind died down.” – Mark 6:48, 50-51

“Lord, stay with me. Guide me. Let me experience Your peace.”

Thank you for reading my reflection.  All thanks to God for giving me the ideas and guiding my words!    © 2025 Gina Bedell   

  

Through these reflections, I invite you, the reader, to reflect on a given topic and then seek deeper answers through prayer, additional spiritual reading, and/or consultation with clergy or other qualified persons in order to grow in your faith and understanding of God’s love and will for your life. 

Comments are always welcome! Please share this with your friends by clicking on one of the icons below. 

If you or someone you know would like to receive these writings directly, please email me at ginabedell1@gmail.com and I will add you to my ‘BCC’ email list. 

You can also find my posts on my Facebook page!

P.S.

Pray for peace at home, in Ukraine, Russia, the Middle East, and around the world. Donate to a cause that tugs at your heart. Take care of those around you; take care of our planet. Pray for the families around the globe whose lives have been torn apart by war and natural disasters.

Happy New Year!

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A new year, a new day, another opportunity to begin again.

Did you make any New Year’s Resolutions? These often center around our physical well-being. We resolve to do things like exercise more, stop smoking, or save more money. If your health is suffering or you’re being reckless with your spending, then you’d probably benefit from making those kinds of concrete changes. Your body is a gift to you from God, as are your talents that allow you to work to support yourself or your family. Caring for and using our gifts wisely is how we thank God for them.

Remember, though, that we are more than our bodies and our bank accounts. We have more to look forward to than what this world offers us: we have eternal life to prepare for! If our body is fit but our soul is corroded, and if our bank account is healthy but we’re stingy with our neighbors, what good will that bring us in eternity? If we have all we need and more but are unwilling to share what we have with the less fortunate, how will we recognize Christ when He comes to us – He, Who disguises Himself in this life as the poor and suffering? 

President Jimmy Carter, who passed away December 29, gives us a good example of how we can ‘walk the talk’ of our faith. He didn’t only profess to love his neighbor; he lived it, whether that was by negotiating peace or building homes with Habitat for Humanity. 

As we begin this new year, make it a priority to ask our Lord to show you what He wants of you – and then listen for His answer. Maybe begin by getting into the habit of reading spiritual material for a few minutes every day. You may want to look into Word Among Us (https://wau.org/) or the Laudate app. Both of these give brief reflections on how the day’s scripture readings relate to our daily lives, as well as inspiring stories of how both ordinary people like ourselves and the saints lived out their faith. 

We can’t take our body or our possessions with us, so let’s examine how much time and energy we’re putting into our preparations for eternity compared to the time and energy we put into what is temporary. Let’s ask Christ to give us the grace to make one or two concrete changes that will help us become more like Him: more patient, loving, generous, humble, and compassionate. 

Let’s ask our Lord to help us prepare for eternal life. 

“Do not love the world or the things of the world… For all that is in the world, sensual lust, enticement for the eyes, and a pretentious life, is not from the Father but is from the world. Yet the world and its enticement are passing away. But whoever does the will of God remains forever.” – 1 John 2:15-17

“Lord, show me what to do to prepare for eternity with You.”

Thank you for reading my reflection.  All thanks to God for giving me the ideas and guiding my words!    © 2025 Gina Bedell   

  

Through these reflections, I invite you, the reader, to reflect on a given topic and then seek deeper answers through prayer, additional spiritual reading, and/or consultation with clergy or other qualified persons in order to grow in your faith and understanding of God’s love and will for your life. 

Comments are always welcome! Please share this with your friends by clicking on one of the icons below. 

If you or someone you know would like to receive these writings directly, please email me at ginabedell1@gmail.com and I will add you to my ‘BCC’ email list.

You can also find my reflections on my Facebook page!

P.S.

Pray for peace at home, in Ukraine, Russia, the Middle East, and around the world. Donate to a cause that tugs at your heart. Take care of those around you; take care of our planet. Pray for the families around the globe whose lives have been torn apart by war and natural disasters.

A Hiking Trail's Lessons

 

Wetmore Trail, CVNP

When Ted suggested we hike Wetmore Trail last weekend I immediately said, “Sure! Let’s try someplace new!” In the 35 years I’ve lived in this area, we had driven past signs for this trail countless times, but somehow we never hiked it. It turned out to be a beautiful trail for hikers and horseback riders in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. As we followed this winding four-mile path, I kept thinking, “How have we never hiked this before??” With so many other wonderful trails within a short drive from our home, we’d overlooked this one. I suppose that’s because, like a lot of other activities in life, we tended to go back to the ones that were familiar to us. Whatever the reason, I was delighted that we had stumbled upon something new, with our favorite features: expansive woods away from the sounds of traffic, streams to cross, and a few steep hills that kept it challenging, especially after last week’s snowfall.

Zoom in on the photo above: You can see the trail way up ahead as it winds through the woods. This would be hidden by foliage during every season except winter. I reminded myself that if we hiked only during the warmer months, when the weather’s nice and comfortable, we’d miss the unique kind of beauty that winter brings. 

As I marveled at the beauty and surprise of it all, I couldn’t help but compare this hike and this trail to our spiritual life: 

Advent is half over; Christmas is just two weeks away. It’s time to ask ourselves: Have I done anything different in my prayer life to strengthen my faith, my relationship with God, or my relationships with my loved ones? Have I done anything concrete for the people around me to prepare my heart for the coming of Christ? Or am I still doing what I’ve always done, sticking with what’s familiar, hoping my love for God and my neighbor will magically increase – or, worse yet, am I complacent with the status quo? 

In our spiritual life, if we always do the same things, if we do only what we’re comfortable with, we’ll miss opportunities for spiritual growth. We’ll miss experiencing God’s love for us in new and tremendous ways. Therefore, if we long to feel more fulfilled, if we want to experience a closer relationship with Christ and with the people around us, then we have to do something different. As I learned on the trail, we won’t experience anything new if we keep doing what we’ve always done. 

These last two weeks of Advent, resolve to do something concrete to strengthen your faith. Make time for prayer time. Serve your neighbor and loved ones with greater love. Contribute to a need in your community. Go out of your comfort zone, and watch God fill that empty space in your heart in surprising ways.

“Sing to the Lord a new song.” – Psalm 96:1

“Lord, I want You to renew my heart!”

Thank you for reading my reflection.  All thanks to God for giving me the ideas and guiding my words!    © 2024 Gina Bedell   

  

Through these reflections, I invite you, the reader, to reflect on a given topic and then seek deeper answers through prayer, additional spiritual reading, and/or consultation with clergy or other qualified persons in order to grow in your faith and understanding of God’s love and will for your life. 

Comments are always welcome! Please share this with your friends by clicking on one of the icons below. 

If you or someone you know would like to receive these writings directly, please email me at ginabedell1@gmail.com and I will add you to my ‘BCC’ email list.

You can also find my posts on Facebook!

P.S.

Pray for peace at home, in Ukraine, Russia, the Middle East, and around the world. Donate to a cause that tugs at your heart. Take care of those around you; take care of our planet. Pray for the families around the globe whose lives have been torn apart by war and natural disasters.